


came back as some bones

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Drabble-esque, F/F, Time Travel, Trapped in the Past, time travel fails miserably in mysterious ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Later, Tenzin will meditate on it, and question the Spirits—why did it happen? How could it have—especially in the way that it did? What did this mean? But he’ll get no answer from them, no matter how much his patience can be stretched.





	came back as some bones

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for any typos
> 
> i honestly don't know what this is; it just kind of came to me and so i just, you know, sort of wrote it (disclaimer: everything is vague and without a clear cut explanation; please consider this to be crack)
> 
> title from [what's wrong by pvris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj4iQItsJSY)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Later, Tenzin will meditate on it, and question the Spirits—why did it happen? How could it have—especially in the way that it did? What did this mean? But he’ll get no answer from them, no matter how much his patience can be stretched.

No one means for it to happen. If anyone’s to blame, someone might point a finger at Aang’s ghost, or Amon for putting them in this position in the first place—

This is what happens: Asami is gripping Korra hard by her arm as ice rips across the world on the wind, the freeze seemingly sharp enough to cut, when Korra’s legs give out and her eyes light up. A chorus of confused shouts goes up in the courtyard outside the main entrance to the Air Temple before there’s a flash—and Korra and Asami vanish.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the dead of night, during a storm, two girls stumble into their village.

(Noatak and Tarrlok are still young men, but they’re definitely older than Master Katara was when she met Avatar Aang. Korra recognizes them, even though she could only hear the councilman’s story in the attic of the Air Temple. Their presences are much unchanged, despite the years that separate these boys and the men they will grow into, and their eyes are wide, wide like the full moon lighting up the snowcapped world.)

Their mother squints and takes a step outside the cozy warmth of the hut. Their father has paid them no mind—not yet.

“Mother,” starts Tarrlok, because—

A girl from the south—and a Water Tribe girl. Both of them are stuck close together, grips on each other white-knuckled and unforgiving.

Noatak is the bolder of the two. He steps out ahead of his mother.

And then the girls collapse. Or, rather, the Water Tribe girl collapses; the girl from the South shouts, “Korra!” and struggles to keep her upright.

Their mother, bless her, goes straight toward them, Noatak in front, Tarrlok hanging back.

“Are you girls—”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(There’s a flicker.

Korra can’t tell if this is a memory, dream, or reality. All she knows is that she and Asami are holding on to each other like they’re lifelines. Her feet are on familiar ground but her head is somewhere else, somewhere far, far away—

She can see the tower of Air Temple Island and the defiled statue of Aang in the distance, but it’s too cold to keep a steady gaze upon the rapidly disappearing view of Republic City burning.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the hut, their mother bundles up the two girls and serves them hot broth to warm their bones. The one who introduced herself as Asami still looks chilled to the bone, but the Water Tribe girl—Korra—has already shrugged off the blankets that were piled on top of her. She’s stretching and yawning, picking at a long scratch on her cheek.

“What are you girls doing out here?” Their mother asks.

“Did you get lost?” Tarlokk asks.

(Yakone, Korra notes, says nothing.)

“We…” Asami looks to Korra.

(What do they say? What do they tell them? _Hi, you’re going to become instruments of your father’s vengeful streak in a few years and a lot of people are going to get hurt._ )

They both look so lost, so tired. And lost. And tired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Someone is shaking them. Trying to get them to wake up. Korra knows that feeling; she can feel the heel of a metal bender’s boot digging into her back, but there’s no coming out of this. Not yet. Not until—)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I…suppose we got lost,” Asami says after downing another cop of broth.

Korra is shaking out her coat now, brushing her hands over the fur lining. Looking up at them, her eyes imploring, she says, “we don’t…exactly know how to get back to our friends.”

“Can you tell us what happened?”

Asami only shook her head; Korra’s mouth opened and shut, like she couldn’t get her jaw to work.

They try to get up and leave, but their mother is too softhearted for that; she ushers them to stay; upon hearing no disagreement from their father, it’s settled.

Noatak and Tarrlok try not to stare as the girls are led into another room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Yakone won’t stop looking at them like they’ve come to hunt him down. She can feel the faint impressions of hands on her shoulder and thinks, fleetingly, that part of her has left somewhere, and come here.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Noatak overhears the girls talking early the next morning. Tarrlok comes in after the whispered conversation has already begun.

“I…I think Aang—or the spirits—”

“It doesn’t matter how we got here. What matters is how we—wake up from this, I guess.”

“Asami…what if we can’t?”

“ _What_?”

“What if we can never get back?”

The brothers exchange glances.

A beat of silence. Then: “Korra…if they’re who you say they are—”

“We can’t do anything about them. I’m not sure how to explain it, but…we’re not in Republic City anymore, but time’s still going how it’s supposed to.”

The dry reply: “except for us.”

“Yeah.”

Another awkward beat of silence, and then—

“Korra?”

“…yeah?”

“Do you think we can ever go back?”

“I don’t know.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the day, Korra and Asami elect to help the boys’ mother throughout the day. Their father goes out to hunt with some of the other tribesmen, leaving them alone, and the boys, of course—since tensions are high between father and sons, because Noatak is close to leaving and Tarrlok is going to give in to his weak stomach for violence soon—stay behind as well.

(Korra pegs Noatak to only be a year or so younger than her. Looking at Tarrlok, it’s hard to imagine this is the same person who will become the man capable of manipulating half the city while the other brother conjures up a war with the opposite half.)

Tarrlok asks, “can either of you bend?”

Asami smiles gently. “I’m not a bender. But Korra is.”

Noatak eyes the both as the girls trade a tender look and a smile.

“Water?” Noatak asks.

Korra seems to mull this over for a moment, like there’s choices involved, and that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—

“Yeah,” Korra says. “I’m a waterbender, like you guys.”

“Where are you from, Korra?” their mother asks. “We might be able to help you get back home.”

She hadn’t heard what the boys did that morning. Her optimism doesn’t bring any light to the girls’ faces.

“Korra grew up south of here,” Asami supplies before the Water Tribe girl can speak. Their eyes connect, there’s a slight nod, and then Noatak _knows_ the girls are lying. About what, and why, he can’t say, but he knows they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Korra can’t shake her fear of the bloodbenders. She remembers how it felt, the painful sensation of someone pulling at the strings and innerworkings of her body to render her helpless. These boys aren’t the councilman and the leader of a revolution based on a lie—not yet—but they’re already the best in bloodbending.

It would be unwise to try anything—especially since Yakone is growing more and more tense with his sons as the days go on.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At night, Tarrlok and Noatak note that the girls aren’t in the house. They sneak out and peer around the back and see the two of them, pressed tight against each other in an embrace. The white-knuckled grip has come back—a sign of desperation. They pull back just enough so they can look each other in the face before Asami says lowly—almost too quietly for either boy to hear—“I’m sorry, Korra.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Just before dawn, Korra and Asami share a dream. Tenzin, the Airbender children, Mako, and Bolin are throwing a rope out to them; they’re in open water; Korra can’t bend; both girl drag each other through the water to try and grasp at the line, but they miss once—twice—three times before waking up gasping, drenched in a cold sweat.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the table, Korra and Asami tell the boys’ parents that they plan on leaving in a week’s time. But their mother disagrees: “the storms won’t pass for at least a month,” she says, glacning to her husband for his opinion; the boys know he only does it to appease her when he nods. “We’d be happy if you remained with us.”

“We’ve outstayed our welcome,” Korra tries to say, but the woman won’t hear it.

Noatak and Tarrlok expected nothing else from their mother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
